I Am
by bpfatcat
Summary: What is Severus Snape? Rated M for language.


**A/N** Good evening (from where I am anyway), and I hope you've all had a nice week! So Girl No More is currently being rewritten, if you've seen the other one-shot I put up for bookworm, you'll know that it all got deleted, yaaaaay. However, this little story wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to pop it up; I know the whole 'Snape is a wounded soldier' thing is a bit overdone, but meh. I want to say though, that this isn't how I personally view Snape, but how I reckon he might think. It's much shorter than my usual works, but I'm a bit pressed for time at the moment, and my beta is still unwell, so please excuse spelling/grammar errors.

 **Disclaimer;** Sorry, still not JKR, so everything except the plot is hers.

And as always...

Enjoy!

 **I Am**

I am a sardonic man, weary of the world and even wearier of acting like I belong in it. I haven't belonged in... Well, ever. Shunned first by my father, and then by my housemates; ' _Your house will be like your family.'_ That's what they'd told me when I started at Hogwarts, and I doubt anyone has ever felt such dread at seemingly reassuring words, such damned 'nice' words to try to bring comfort to a cluster of nervous eleven year olds. Ha, comfort? No, the second I heard those words, my heart dropped, and moments later it stopped beating; first this place was going to be like home, and then the only good thing I knew was taken from me, placed in a different 'family'. If I could go back and change anything, I would make it so that she and I were in the same house. If we had been then... Maybe things would be different? Actually, that's a lie. If I could change anything, I would never have called her a Mudblood.

I am a pathetic bastard, who has spent years acting like a grouchy old git to hide from the mistakes I made years ago. So much hiding... Hmm. So much wasted time. First hiding from the lies I told both the Muggle police and the Ministry Aurors when I was just a child, then from the chaos I made of my friendship with the only person I'd ever truly loved, then, well, _everything_. I suppose that by agreeing to help Albus I was trying to rectify my wrongs, but by that point I was damned to hell anyway. And so I should be. I should be cursed to the deepest, darkest, most fucking torturous circle of Hell to exist, and made to stay there forever. I as good as killed her. I deserve nothing less than despair.

I am a murderer, though many times I tried to justify what I did, like an absolute imbecile. I was a murderer from the moment I lied and said that my father didn't hit my mother, that he didn't hit me, that I didn't see anything the day I left for school and he was drunk and yelling at her. I was a murderer from the second I allowed myself to be corrupted by Lucius, and taken into the brotherly fold of the Death Eaters, where I told myself I finally had a family that accepted and appreciated me. I was a murderer from the instant I listened to Trelawney, the instant I turned spy, the instant Albus told me that the boy must die. Oh, Lily... First I betrayed you, now I must sit back as your son walks to his inevitable death? Well, it's already done, so I suppose I have as good as murdered him too. Yes, I am a murderer in more ways than one.

I am a coward, a stupid coward who has had enough of this world. I tried to change, and some may even call me brave; years of spying have not been easy. But what I've done in these past years hasn't been brave; I've simply been running, as far and as fast as I can, because I just can't face up to my own fucked up past. I can't face up to what I've done. Brave indeed. Albus once said that he thought I might not belong in Slytherin, the old fool. No, I am, and always have been, Slytherin through and through, though my motives may not have been dark, my actions were always serpentine. Ironic, really, that I, a snake like the man I once served, is to die by the fangs of _His_ pet. All of us, snakes; deceiving, subtle, cunning... Oh, how I wish I'd had a chance to kill Nagini.

I am dying. Dying. It's funny, really. So much placed on one word. It doesn't really feel too bad. My mind is... Slowing. But... Now that the pain is mostly gone... It's almost peaceful. I'm free... I don't deserve it, but no-one is going to be demanding anything from me anymore. Oh... What am I? Lily? Oh, Harry... You poor man... You should have been mine. I am crying now; _Take them, take them..._ Please... You must know, though you will never know my last thoughts. How I have hated you, hated looking at you, hated hearing you, hated your very existence. It's never been your fault, it's just... My last thoughts, as I look into that intense green. I have never known what I truly am, until now.

I am sorry. Mother. Albus. Minerva. Harry. Lily...

I am sorry.

 _You have your mothers eyes._


End file.
